Ulysses is an exceedingly difficult novel, yet it's a key to understanding modern literature. (Read Eamonn Fitzgerald's introduction here online.) Tomorrow we celebrate Bloomsday to honor the book that has kept professors and censors busy since 1922: professors brooding over enigmas and complexities, censors fussing oversensual and graphic language initially branded "obscene". In 1933, a federal judge ruled that Ulysses was art, not pornography: In the world of art, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. That finally made the book available to the public.

But how to make it more accessible to less literate readers? The creators of a Web comic version of the classic novel, called Ulysses "Seen", have adapted it for younger readers, specifically for the college students of today. They now want to turn it into an application for the iPad. But
last week they announced that Apple had required them to remove any images containing nudity before the comic could be approved. Robert Berry, the illustrator, was disappointed, but also said that he did not feel censored by Apple. "It's their rules," he told The New York Times. "We're coming to their dinner party at their house."

Their dinner party? Our philistinecontemporaries at Apple are going to have to wake up and smell the mountain flowers. Head over to Dublin. There's a party going on. Tenses practice, next page.

Anne Hodgson

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"I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair" – from Molly Bloom's monologue at the end of Ulysses

COMMENTS

Submitted by Anne Hodgson on Thu, 17/06/2010 - 14:43.

Update: Apple has just changed its content policy as a result of this incident, telling the creators of Ulysses "Seen" that they will be able to put their Web comic adaptation of James Joyce's Ulysses on the iPad in its original form. Good going, Apple! More on the story here.